Go figure.
Congressman John Conyer's attorney said on Monday that his client doesn't want a divorce from Monica Conyers, Tresa Baldas of the Detroit Free Press reports.
"Mr. Conyers has always wanted a reconciliation," John Conyers' lawyer, Farmington Hills-based attorney Arnold Reed, told the Free Press. "Mr. Conyers has always put God first, family second and (then) his service to his community. If the parties can reconcile, that's what Mr. Conyers would like to see. And that's what we're hoping for. So far, it's been very amicable."
Monica Conyers filed for divorce last month in Wayne County Circuit Court, citing "a breakdown of the marriage relationship to the extent that the objects of matrimony have been destroyed and there remains no reasonable likelihood that the marriage can be preserved."
Interestingly, the congressman in his response filed in court, agreed to the allegation that the marriage has broken down beyond repair and wants the marriage to end, too, the Freep reports.
Their 25 years of marriage has long been a subject of speculation as to how solid it really was.
The Washington Post in a 2009 article raised questions as to the quality of the marriage in a story about her bribery case and the fact there was no evidence that Congressman Conyers knew what had been going on.
The Post article stated:
Allies of John Conyers, who prizes his record of jousting with the Bush administration over its approach to civil rights and national security, say that he attends to few details outside his legislative duties and largely leads a separate life from his wife of nearly two decades.
The article went on to say:
The marriage has been elusive from the start. The former Monica Ann Esters took a job in the lawmaker's Washington office in the late 1980s, before moving on to work on his mayoral campaign. They married in 1990, a month before their first son was born in Detroit's Grace Hospital. Conyers was marrying for the first time at age 61. Esters was 25. Her political ambitions were only beginning.
Charlie LeDuff, in his book, Detroit: An American Autopsy, writes that he met Monica Conyers at Baker's Keyboard Lounge in Detroit while she was still a city council member about seven years ago, and he recounted her saying:
"The congressman and I don't spend much time together any more, but that's our marriage and it works for us."
